Lizcordysmum wrote:...I had thought of one of those cages to put Lily in to turn the wheel to turn a spit with a roasting ox over a huge fire...but there is still over half a turkey left from Christmas .......

In that case, simply scale it down to an over sized hampsters cage. These days one rarely sees an ox on the rotisserie anyway. Chicken is the flesh of choice.

Trying hard not to laugh, here, Ms. Liz,,,not at your misfortune,,but, at the visual, and, of course, the colorful way you tell it!

Have never fallen asleep on the throne, nor have I fallen OFF it, but have definitely fallen INTO it. Seems the male in this house feels I should have turned the lights on, and checked it, in the middle of the night, in my ensuite that he generally never uses!

I've never had family or guests fall into or off the throne at my place either; of fall asleep on it .. pass out..... maybe .. . LOL.....I did get a phone call at work from my ex just a couple of weeks after we were married though. I answered her only to hear " I broke the toilet"....She went to put a soft seat on the bowl rather than the regular hard plastic one there..The nut on the mounting bolts were tight, or corroded so they wouldn't turn for her.. She never did explain what she did... either hit the nut with a hammer, or had a large wrench slip, but the effect was the same.. one toilet bowl in several pieces .Oh well , it was a very old toilet and people had been crapping in it for years sitting on that cold hard seat. Her whoopy cushion seat didn't last long on the new toilet .. the vinyl plastic quite quickly on it soon cracked, and the seat was hanged back to a hard plastic one.

Inge, Lily can run pretty fast...I'm trying to combine the treadmill with the hamster cage...she needs space to run! You are right about the chicken, but the ox seemed like a great idea.

Lulu...you are BACK! How could you bear to leave Jamaica?

I have had my share of falling INTO toilets too...and sitting down on ice cold plastic toilet lids as well.Major shock!

Dave...teenage son once went to jiggle the thingie to stop the toilet from "running" and dropped the lid of the tank onto the open toilet bowl...smashing both to many many pieces. We were out that evening...came home late. They had figured out how to shut off the water to the toilet, thank goodness.

Did try the soft vinyl seat ONCE...it eventually cracked...we replaced it with wood. And eventually the wooden seat cracked too and for awhile everyone got pinched, every time they sat down.

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Am depriving Lily of MERLIN today...till maybe later when a brand new season begins. Last night we watched over three hours of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo...Lily very upset during the very rough scenes. (she does much better with fantasy.) So far, she has HAD to go outside six times since we got up, and HAD to have the gate taken down to the living room so that she can get on a chair at the front window "something MIGHT be happening!" and keeps coming and sitting up and begging beside me.

Lizcordysmum wrote:Lulu...you are BACK! How could you bear to leave Jamaica?

It was really tough, leaving, Liz! Everything was amazing, in spite of getting really sick with the flu, and what a nasty one it is! There were a lot of people coughing on the plane on the way down; but that number increased significantly on the way back! I do not normally get colds or the flu,,it had to be the lack of sleep!

Got a real bone to pick with Sunwing, though! Over an 18 hour delay in the Ottawa airport, with little or no explanation. We asked several Sunwing people, and got as many different answers, like,,the pilots had to rest for 8 hours, (even though they landed fine @ 5:30pm, the day before,,so,,what,,only 2 pilots on staff?),, it was caused by snow in Ottawa, (mostly all other airlines were on time), then someone on the 800# told us there would be no compensation,,"read the fine print", and hung up on my daughter, then on another 800# - that the planes were sent to Montreal and Toronto, to help with their backlog because of the snow there! On boarding the plane, we were given a paper, offering $150. on a future (within a year) vacation, and saying it was mechanical difficulties, but the pilot came on the air and said it was not mechanical difficulties, it was technical difficulties.

Living in the great white north, we are plenty used to, and fairly accepting of weather delays. What I did not appreciate was Sunwing's total lack of honesty and credibility in dealing with us at all! Just knowing what you're dealing with, makes it less stressful. And, sorry, when you take a day and a half of my vacation, $150. off a future vacation does not calculate! The poor families with children!

Leave the resort a week later at 4PM, arrive at the airport at 6PM for a 9PM scheduled flight. Flight delayed by 2.5 hours because of an onboard oven malfunction or so they say.

SunWing knew of the flight delay before we left the resort but still had us picked up at the resort at 4PM. We found out about the delay at 9:30PM.

SunWing rep wouldn't fork over the 40 bucks to upgrade us to the VIP room and offered us some water and juice. He was also very snarky and was smirking at us. He told us no other airline would give us anything for this delay despite us telling him of delays on both ends of our trip and a lost bag. He was very condescending and took a stance of not letting us get anything out of him rather than being helpful and trying to retain a customer. We told him we won't fly with SunWing again and he simply said fine.

We arrive in Ottawa at just past 3AM and our bags take an hour to get off the plane because they are again short staffed. 1 guy unloaded the entire plane when it's supposed to be 4.

BTW my backpack finally got delivered to me a day after I arrived home. It never left the airport and they made no effort to get it to me in Cuba because they had no scheduled flights going there during the week.

I will be informing RedTag.ca, where we purchased the vacation, I will be complaining to SunWing. It should also be noted that SunWing is likely facing financial penalties according to the Border service guard we talked to. He informed us that this is a common occurrence with SunWing.

I realize it's difficult to avoid SunWing if you go on cheap vacations but there are other options out there.

The SunWing rep acted as if it was one couple upset that he may or may not lose as a customer. Here's hoping he's wrong. Off to FaceBook, Twitter and beyond.

If dandelions were hard to grow, they would be most welcome on any lawn. ~Andrew Mason

That Sunwing travel stuff makes me very glad I am an armchair traveller only. I wish it wasn't like this, but I am making the best of things. I wanted to see Jamaica, Mexico, Scandinavia, China/Tibet...maybe next lifetime...

Blue! how are YOU? Have you been very busy?

Lily...a rescue from FurBaby.rescue in WA state, last Februardy. A difficult, challenging little Shih Tzuh x Maltese...who is ultra hyper in personality. Had been put in a kill-shelter, but was rescued at last moment "room in the car for another little one." I think it was week one when she ripped open my thumb causing grief for about two months...once that healed, she went for the fingers...still some troubles there. First bite was for attempting to clean up throw-up, second one was foolish foolish me attempting to kiss her on the back. Is MOST annoying as I can hug and kiss all the others and must never ever try to kiss her again. (throw-up, I wait till she is over it, take her outside, and clean up out of her sight.) I have her medical records going back to 9 weeks of age...she growled at the vet then, and here, she wears a bubble hard plastic head container for vet visits. She is very fast.

She is addicted to tv...really and truly. If she was bigger, she would bring me the remote...as it is she just sits up and begs for me to turn tv on. I like the news on all day long...she makes no never mind about preferring cartoons, kids' shows, and Merlin, of course. I count my blessings, it could be hockey!

She loves the car...has chewed up three doors, so far. She doesn't like strangers coming up to the car to see "the cute little doggies!" if anyone knows how to repair CHEAPLY, I'd appreciate it...padded, vinyl, pebbly finish.

She also loves the 2nd hand scooter I bought just so I could take her for walkies...I don't walk very well, and certainly not at the speed she likes to go. She adores the scooter, must have had prior experience as she hops onto the floor space immediately and sits beautifully till told "Okay, there you go, Lil." She also is cautious about the wheels (they do have little bumpers/covers but I still managed to get her lead badly tangled on one of our trips. Had to carry her home in my arms (2 blocks) because I couldn't untangle the lead. NOW I know that wheels do disengage so if it happens again, I can remove the lead. I just hope it never happens again.)

She adores stuffed toys...I now sleep with five of these...plus her toybox is full and the floor is covered. She and Hamish get a new toy just about every time I go to town...which isn't often...except for library and NO toys after library trip!

She is nothing like any other dog I've ever belonged to...takes a lot of getting used to. However, she licks my fingers in a show of affection, and cuddles up at night or for naps in the daytime. She is crazy about Hamish (the orange cat) and he is crazy about her. He outweighs her and he's fast.

She is four years old now...healthy as can be. She loves me...goes out with "Daddy" and the other dogs for car rides, races upstairs to find MOMMY and wiggles and wags with delight to see me. Which still means I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw her, and I sometimes think that would be pretty far.

Here she is, engrossed in listening to "Cats Sing Merry Christmas" on cd.

Hope the "tumble" was more embarr ass ing than hurtful Liz, so hope no bruises on anything.Now let's get that out of the way, I roared my arse off when I read that Liz. Honest, there was a joke my mother used to tell (think she only knew 3, and repeated them all my life thus far) of a stranger asking a farmer is he could use his outhouse. The farmer said sure, and took him there. Much to the strangers surprise, there was carp everywhere. So the stranger asked if there was something wrong with someone in the house. The farmer said no, but my wife takes salts. The stranger asked "epsom salts"?"No.....somersaults " he replied. Thanks for the memory and the visual Liz.Good to see Lily again, and she is as cute as ever.Hopefully you will feel better soon Linda, sorry to hear of the airlines screwup.